Trump on Stage
Today’s news cycle has been dominated by the civil trial in New York City of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. Today was the day when the prosecution called Trump to the stand, having already heard from his co-defendants Don Jr. and Eric last week and before the court hears from his daughter Ivanka. It was quite a shit show from the sound of it. I say the sound of it because the New York State civil court does not allow televised coverage of the court proceedings like they do in Georgia, so we have to rely on a whole array of verbatim transcripts of what is being said. Listening on MSNBC means hearing about every break when Trump and his lawyers come out and do what he always likes to do, which is play to the crowd. Ever since I first became aware of Donald Trump about forty years ago, it has been clear that few people craved media attention more than he does. Trump seems always to be on stage and seems to relish every aspect of his notoriety, no matter the basis.
I arrived in New York City in 1976. While I was starting my banking career on Park Avenue, Donald Trump was still in Queens with his successful developer father, Fred. Even then he was anxious to get away from what he considered the sideshow in Queens where Fred had created his fortune in a relatively low-profile but highly controversial way, being excoriated by the Federal government for discriminatory rental practices. In 1978 he moved to the center circus ring with the help of dear old Dad by doing a deal in the ashes of the New York City real estate downturn, with the help of a modest bank construction loan (guaranteed by Fred and provided by Chase Bank) and a massive real estate abatement from the City. That project turned the Commodore Hotel near Grand Central Terminal into the Grand Hyatt Hotel, a place where I attended many a function over the years. On the back of that successful deal, made possible by Fred and City, Donald really went center stage by doing the deal that had him creating his first Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. It was that deal that got him the press of being a top-notch negotiator and deal-doer, but controversy was never very far from him for that or any other deal he ever undertook. Trump Tower was supposedly built by a crew of illegal Polish immigrants who were paid wages below the legal minimum wage. Even then, Trump used the now familiar tactic of declaring in the litigation that he didn’t l know nothin’ about nothin’. It was always somebody else’s fault, but all his glory.
It was in those heady deal-doing days of the mid and late 1980s that I really became familiar with Donald Trump. You see, somewhere along the way, my bank, Bankers Trust, which was considered a pretty savvy real estate lender, decided to get into bed with the man. The thing about real estate is that it is the perfect arena for developers with lots of Chutzpah, a bit of money and little or no ethics, which pretty much fit Trump’s profile. Even then, there was a joke running around the New York banking circles that went like this. How do you make a small fortune? Start with Daddy’s big fortune and give it to Donald Trump. My awareness of Trump came about because I was handling the banking crisis of the 80’s for Bankers Trust, the LDC Debt Crisis. We had $4 billion of the sovereign debt mostly to Latin America, and I reported to the bank’s Chief Credit Officer, Joe Manganello (rest his soul). Joe had cut his credit teeth on the bank’s credit crisis of the 70s, which was the NYC real estate crisis. During the late 80’s, Joe’s time was split between helping me wrestle the LDC Debt Crisis to the mat and keeping the next wave of the real estate crisis from becoming a bigger problem.
While I was negotiating with the governments of Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Joe was helping to sort out the latest Trump debacle as he over-extended himself into Atlantic City with first the Trump Harrah’s and then the Trump Taj Mahal. Many asked the rhetorical question…How do you lose money on a casino? While that mess was brewing and eventually leading to Trump’s first of four eventually business bankruptcies, he was busy getting himself in the papers by taking on high profile projects like the reclamation of Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park, which he plastered with the Trump name on every pair of skates, every inch of the rink walls and even the Zamboni machine. It was in those days that I first had the opportunity to meet Trump, even though his name was in my ears every day up in Joe’s office. I was invited by my personal attorney to a Friar’s Club Roast at the New York Hilton Hotel. The person being roasted was Donald and it was the first time I saw first-hand that he adhered to the notion that all publicity was good publicity, but also that he HATED being ridiculed, which of course was what that roast was really all about.
Trump went into the 1990’s as a wounded beast, living on an allowance provided by his bankers, who were prepared to see him further exploit his already-over-exploited and quickly depreciating Trump brand. What everyone in New York (especially in banking circles) knew was that Trump was a walking and talking financial disaster that was as close to a business clown as any of us knew. But that was not the impression he promoted, to say the least, and whether from his unstoppable braggadocio or his self-promoting books, the rest of America got it into their head that he was a successful businessman. Anyone who knew anything about business understood this, but sure enough, in 2004, Mark Burnett, the guru of the newest television rage, reality TV, came up with the idea for The Apprentice on the heels of his Survivor success and prior to Shark Tank. What Trump had done right all those years that he was NOT succeeding in business, was to take center stage and declare victory under any and all circumstances. His success with The Apprentice earned him a purported $400 million, which may have been his one claim to business success, but more importantly, it solidified his belief that he belonged on stage and it simultaneously propelled him onto the national and perhaps international stage.
It has now been eight years since Donald Trump came down that golden elevator in Trump Tower and declared the improbability of his candidacy for President in the 2016 election. No one, whether liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican took him seriously, but we were all mesmerized and amused. But it seemed that there were some who did take him seriously and he began to realize that his core base of supporters were both unflappable and wanted nothing more than to listen to him rant at this or that from whatever pulpits he could find.
After the shock of his political win, many of us assumed Trump would veer towards the mainstream, but his love of the stage and his need for the flamboyance of being the renegade and the adoration which that continued to bring him, made him stay center stage and required him to make more and more outrageous statements to keep his positioning at the center. Once he lost the 2020 election, we all (again, liberals, conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, alike) assumed he would quickly fade into obscurity, but his years of performance art taught him something none of us could have guessed. It taught him that to once again declare victory despite all evidence to the contrary, kept him on center stage and has done so for three years post-presidency. Now, as he finds himself on his newest stage, the stage of the court, first this civil trial, but that only as warm-up for the impending criminal trials, this old dog wants and needs no new tricks, he is acting out on that stage just as he has on all the stages he has performed on over the decades.
I listen to the legal pundits saying that this act will not play in court the way it has in politics, but they said the same of the political stage not being like the reality TV stage, which was not like the varied business stage (Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Golf Courses, etc.) or the Casino stage or even the real estate development stage. But that all washed over Donald Trump. He only knows one act and that is how he plays on each and every stage. Only time will tell when that final curtain shall fall on his quite remarkable stage career.